


Again

by emotionalsupporthufflepuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst, F/M, Forgiveness, Freeform, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Wartime, dash of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26571352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emotionalsupporthufflepuff/pseuds/emotionalsupporthufflepuff
Summary: Katie Bell and Draco Malfoy seemed to be destined to keep meeting.
Relationships: Katie Bell/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 28
Kudos: 36
Collections: Sing Me a Rare: UK Invasion!





	Again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sing Me a Rare: The UK Invasion. Much love to my Alpha and Beta who shall remain nameless until the fest is complete.  
> Song prompt : Love again, New Hope Club
> 
> Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is being made from this creation.

It's so cold.

So painfully unbelievably and unnaturally cold, even inside the castle. 

The kind of cold that just steals the breath from right between the lips and crawls into the lungs, leaving little shards of ice in the bloodstream. 

Katie keeps her eyes downcast on the stone. 

There is no place for bravery here, no place for courage or hope. Harry took all those things when he left them there. 

Neville says he's coming back. Katie would have doubts if she let herself feel such a thing. 

But she doesn't. It's too cold for that here.

She's just trying to keep her head down and get back to Gryffindor Tower.

A pair of dragon hide boots slide soundlessly into her vision. Stopping to follow the long legs up. Up into pitch-black robes, up in the pale features in a face that now haunted her dreams. 

Katie swallowed the fear and stared into those silver eyes. It’s bitter and tastes all too familiar these days.

"Malfoy. " she breathes, hoping he doesn't hear her, hoping he leaves without incident.

It's too much to hope. It evaporates like the mist of a cold breath. 

"Bell. " it sounds like a curse coming from him. Like that very surname puts her beneath him. 

(Something else that invades her imagination when she's least expecting. But no one ever said the devil wasn't handsome. )

She tries to sidestep him, but he cuts her off, boots dragging against the stone—his cronies off to the side catcall lewd suggestions as to what his next move is. 

"Guess Parkinson's stop putting out, so Malfoy's slumming around with the half-bloods." 

"No, I bet its a Quidditch thing- " 

Their words cut off in a distorted echoed cacophony as he tilts her chin up to look at him. 

It’s like trying to look at a bright light in a dark room, and her eyes squinted in response. 

He leans in too close to her mouth, too close to her space, but she’s frozen. The smell of him and the ghost of his last cigarette hangs in the air. 

"Meet me on the pitch. Midnight. Do not get caught." 

She wouldn't even be sure he had spoken if she hadn't felt the vibrations prickle against her skin. 

With a sharp shove, she pushes him out of her face, expensive fabric foreign to her bare palms. He smirks and throws his hands up defensively while his friends guffaw stupidly. 

"Your loss Bell." He says with a smirk, stepping backward and out of sight. Gryffindor Tower is just a few paces away, and she wonders if she even belongs there anymore. 

*

The snow is too loud under her feet. It cracks and crunches, sinking under her weight, leaving the evidence of her existence behind. Dementors hover high in the moonless sky, blotting out the stars. 

She tells herself she can't even feel their presence anymore. 

No matter how much she racked her mind, no matter how many memories she combed through, good and bad, to support her decision to ignore the request. Katie found herself heading down to the pitch. 

Dark coffee-colored hair bound under her hood and eyes the color of rust; seeing the barest outlines of the world around her, she knew whatever Malfoy was looking for wasn’t in her physical looks. 

Maybe it was because people always called her kind, and they associated kindness with weakness. Maybe it did have something to do with Quidditch. 

Maybe he had just picked her randomly from a crowd to make her life a living hell. 

Not daring to light her wand for fear of being caught, she finds the tunnel almost entirely by memory alone. Her feet knew the path she'd walked in joy so many times. If she closes her eyes, she can feel the sunshine warming her skin, feel the firm grip of her broom in her hand, and hear the sounds of people cheering above her head.

Now she felt nothing, not the knee-deep snow, not the urge to run back to the castle nor the pang of fear of watching him rise from the bench on the unused field. 

"You walk like a troll. I could hear you coming from the castle." He says as a greeting. 

"What do you want, Malfoy? If you're going to curse me again, do me a favor and kill me at the end of it, recovery was a bitch.”

His lip curls in a familiar snarl, “Noted.” He comes towards her, no longer walking as if someone had placed a crown on his head but like someone who was dragging the world’s weight on his shoulders. “Your mother was a Muggle- Born, but she died. Your father is a Half-blood and edits the sports section of the  _ Prophet.”  _

Her eyebrows knit together in thought, trying to understand the underlying intent in his words. “Yes. That’s all public knowledge, though.” 

“Your father recently refused to make some  _ changes _ that were suggested to him. He should expect some visitors any time now to try and persuade him otherwise. You should keep your guard up as well.” he drawls as he steps into her space again, much too close for comfort. The wand light makes him cruelly beautiful, like a highly polished assassin's sword. He’s looking over her shoulder to the stands behind her. His eyes have a strange clouded quality to them. 

“Is that a threat, Malfoy?” The words don’t come out half as courageous as she hoped they would. 

He tilts his head in thought, almost comical. She swallows down the mad urge to laugh. “Not a threat. Let’s call it an apology.” He turns and heads out of the opposite tunnel without another word, blending into the landscape only seconds later. 

*

Somehow she works up enough happy memories to send a Patronus to her father to go into hiding, nearly blacking out from the effort. But he’s a prideful, stubborn man who doesn’t give in to the pressure. He dies in the attempt to fight off all five of the Death Eaters that come for him.

Katie can’t even cry about it until after the final battle is won. 

*

He knocks on her door a year after the battle. His presence is so foreign to her in this life; she briefly has to wonder if she’s lost her mind to madness caused by grief. 

Of course, she would never answer the door without her wand in hand. Ebony and phoenix hair, powerful but flexible. Not resistant to change or forgiveness, but still not to be trifled with. 

He holds his hands, empty palms towards the sky, unflinching. Dead grey eyes that match a summer storm growing behind him. 

“Bell.” It’s lost all its venom. All it is now is a word. 

“Malfoy.” A name loaded with loathing and fear, ripe on her lips. She wants to hex him on principle to have the nerve to show his face on her front step, as if he could ever have any place here. Icy waters fill her veins while she lowers her wand. 

“I need to say something. Let me get it out, and I’ll leave your life forever. Promise.” He carefully slips both hands into his pocket and waits for her go-ahead. 

Throwing caution to the wind, she throws the front door open wider and tilts her head inside. “Come in them. Tea?” 

Malfoy stops so hard his shoes squeak on the rough wood floors. “Seriously?”

Pulling her hair up into a high ponytail, she shrugs and doesn’t look directly at him. “Yeah. Common decency and all.” 

She sends the loaded tea tray floating into her sitting room to the table and brings two chipped plain mugs in by hand. Embarrassment washes over her. She realizes she’s only in a red Gryffindor Quidditch shirt and matching shorts, tiny and covering nothing. 

They fix their tea in silence. She expects Malfoy to make some condescending remake about her mugs, tea tray, furniture, flat...something. Anything. But he keeps it all in if he’s even thinking it. After a perfunctory sip, he begins to speak, staring intently at her fireplace. 

“I came here to apologize. I know it changes nothing for you, and I don’t expect your forgiveness, as I’ve done nothing to deserve it. You of all people. I’ve changed my beliefs, and I will spend the rest of my life making reforms.” He takes another sip and lets himself look at her. 

Katie only stares. Everything she’s suppressed for years comes rushing back, and she can’t decide which to act on first. Anger tells her to smash the cup of his head and tell him to get out. Grief tells her to weep, and fear tells her to run. 

“You already apologized. On the pitch, that one night.” Mortification at her words makes her want to crawl under the floorboards-What a stupid thing to say. 

“Once isn’t enough. A million times will never be enough. I fucked up Bell, and you just so happened to wander by first, so I dragged you down with me.” 

Blind fury wins out. 

“Then why fucking bother?! Why Malfoy?! What’s it all for if it’s not enough?” she does throw the mug across the sitting room, and it smashes against the wall, streaking down the paint. He stares at her impassively, so the tears come fast and hot, staining her cheeks as red as her shirt. “What’s the point?” 

He shrugs with one shoulder, a casual response to her catastrophic meltdown. "Most people start to draw a sense of closure, I think. Closure helps the healing begin."

Terse. Clinical. Factual. 

She invades his space, stepping right in between his knees as he sits oh so comfortably on her furniture in her home. "What about you? Are you getting anything out of this? Do you sleep better at night?"

Malfoy shakes his head this time, emotion finally cracking through the surface, guilt coloring his features. His throat bobs as he swallows whatever confession threatened to come forth.

Their eyes meet, and for the first time, she hopes one of her roommates will come home early, come home and save her from the mistake she wants to make. To fall into those eyes. 

_ So fucking stupid, Katie.  _

“You know,  _ Draco _ \- “ she practically hisses the name, “ I don’t feel a fucking thing anymore.” 

He’s unphased by it all. “I think that’s a fucking lie,  _ Katie.  _ I think you’re just shoving it all down. You need a release.” 

“And I suppose you’d be the one to help me with that?”

“If you want.” 

She’s stupid, she’s so fucking stupid…

Her mouth collides with his. There’s nothing tender here, nothing romantic, just a furious impassioned meeting of bodies. The animosity is still ripe between them as her tongue slides against his, and her hands rake over his chest. Her fingers coil in his fine hair as his fingers dig into her arse, pulling her closer still. With one leg on either side of his, her hips roll against his in a wordless plea for more. 

“Take what you need. I owe it to you,” he mumbles, nipping at her collarbone. 

The anger pours out in her almost violent grab at his shirt, feeling it give way and expose his scarred chest, nails blazing little paths in the pale surface. She half sobs out her grief as she grinds on him through his trousers.

“What if I told you to fuck me right here?” she pulls her top over her head with no bra on underneath. Being athletically built, a fleeting moment of insecurity passes through, his hungry stare sends it away as quickly as it comes. 

“Don’t Johnson and Spinnet live here too?” but Malfoy can’t keep his mouth to himself and pulls one taut nipple between his lips, taking the other in his fingers, making her cry out. 

“They do, and they’ll see me here with you. Probably hex your bollocks off, to be honest-" she gasped as his teeth lightly pulling at her flesh. "Alicia may not even use her wand...mean grip on that one." 

He exhales heavily from his nose. "Which one's your room? I'll fuck you into the wall, the floor, mattress, anything you want as long as I get to keep my bollocks."

He makes good on the promise. Though every move is just a primal instinct to get off, Katie can't help but relish in the sensations in the way her muscles ache, her toes curl, or her voice grows hoarse from calling out. Her room has a permanent silencing charm activated when she closes the door all the way.If not, everyone would know she was being fucked within an inch of her life by Draco Malfoy. 

*

It’s so warm. 

So comfortably warm. With the blood rushing through her body and every nerve alive and buzzing. It feels like she’s woken up from years of sleep.

She doesn't kick him out right away. He lays stretched out on her bed, naked and smoking something he's fished out of his jeans pocket. The room swims and buzzes with the afterglow of rough sex and resolved tension. They talk about everything and nothing with hours evaporating in the haze until Katie realizes her roommates are going to get concerned soon.

"I have training in the morning. Hoping I can get on the reserves for the Tornadoes this season, make my way up the ranks in a year or two. It'll be a lot of traveling." She can see in his eyes that he's picked up the hint. 

This is a one-time thing. 

It was never meant to get this far anyway. It was just something that happened, just like their lives, starting on this collision course. 

It won't happen again, and whatever forgiveness he's looking for will be granted if he leaves without a scene. 

Gathering his clothes, he asks what her back up plan is, and she says there's not enough money in her account for another year of only part-time work, so this is it. He hums a noise to show he’s heard her. 

There’s an awkward silence as he stands there fully dressed again. 

“Draco.” Because there’s no going back to  _ Malfoy _ , now. “Thank you for that.” It’s not eloquent, but it’s all she has. 

“Katie.” he tries out the name, and the corners of his mouth turn up slightly. “You’re welcome for...whatever that was.”

*

The next morning she gets a notice from Gringotts that a vast deposit from an anonymous source has been made into her account. It’s enough to live off of carefully for a few seasons. 

Angelina and Alicia are in the kitchen with her when she gets the notice.

“So, whoever you snuck over yesterday must have been loaded.” Angelina says, reading over her shoulder. Katie flushes a violent red. “Yeah, silencing charms don’t work for the headboard smacking the wall, love. I won’t pry, but you seem better. He must have been good for you.”

“You’d never believe me even if I told you,” Katie responds truthfully. 

Alicia shrugs and flicks her wand towards the dishes. “Judging from that, I’m sure we’ll find out eventually.” 

Katie shakes her head, tossing her curtain of hair over her shoulder. “It was a one-time thing. I’ll never see him again. Now, who's going to go for a jog with me?”

*

The muggle club is packed with bodies, all milling around the warehouse space as multi-colored lights bounce around the concrete walls. 

Blaise Zabini had dragged them all here, claiming there was better “ tail to chase” in the muggle world. Theo and Draco go along with it when he offers to pay for everything.

Draco leans against the bar, flashing a cheeky smile at the redhead bartender to get their drinks faster. 

But behind her, he sees a new group of people pile into the packed space. 

He recognizes the group as the Tutshill Tornados Quidditch team, who are clearly out to celebrate some kind of victory. 

And their star Chaser is leading the line, dancing along the way, swaying her hip with an intoxicating smile on her lips. 

His mind stutters to stop as he’s sure he’s not really seeing her. 

They were never supposed to meet again. It was a one-time thing.

He curses whatever chaotic fate has fucked him over now. 

Two options present themselves. One, stand right here at the bar and watch her from afar, progressively drinking himself into a stupor until he can convince Theo and Blaise to go.

Or two, and the far more tempting of the options, he can make himself visible to her, maybe get close enough to smell her perfume or watch her mouth turn up at the corners when she says his given name. 

Probably all in the same second,her entire team blows the Statute of Secrecy by cursing the living shit out of him for even approaching her. 

But he can’t tear away. Her body writhes in time with the music and flashback to her writhing under him coming screaming back. 

Nothing had ever felt like that before. No one had made him earn his forgiveness in such a brutal, physical way and then kissed him so sweetly when it was won. 

No, he’s really sure he’s lost his mind. 

But he needs it. Needs her. Again. 

It’s obvious the moment she spots him. Her mouth falls open into a tantalizing shape, and her dark eyes fixate on his. She’s wearing a scrap of a silver dress that splits open to almost below her rib cage; its hem is just below her arse.

She has a fantastic body and knows it. Her boyfriend probably tells her daily. Because surely Katie Bell has found someone by now.

And she’s coming over to tell him so right now.

Because there is no way this is happening. 

“I wouldn’t expect to find you in a place like this.” is how she greets him. There’s a new confidence there that speaks back to more innocent times. 

“Why, because it’s muggle?” he says in her ear, leaning in to get a breath of her scent. At least he can get that. 

“No, it’s not that...I guess...I never expected to find you anywhere I happened to be.” Her arm snakes around his, and he goes to jerk it away, but she’s too strong. “Can I get a dance?” 

“You don’t want to be seen with me. People will talk.” He can’t do this again. This is impossible; she was just the first one past the door that December day. It should have never been like this. They should be strangers…

“I know.” Her touch is electric, and their magic is pulsing together. “But you’re the only one who ever made me feel like that. I need to feel it again.” 

He’s lost his mind. There’s no way.

Her hand slips in his, and they start the dance again. 


End file.
